Posts on June 2, 2010
Fine, I'm getting old
Mood: tired
Posted on 2010-06-02 09:38:00
Tags: work
Words: 65
This weekend I spent some time outside throwing (and hitting) a wiffle ball. My back was pretty sore yesterday and it took me a long time to figure out that was the cause!
I'm giving an presentation at work in a few weeks, which I like doing. Writing the slides, however, feels a lot like writing an essay, which I hate (and am terrible at).
No more depressing links!
Mood: cheerful
Posted on 2010-06-02 14:03:00
Tags: links
Words: 404
I keep reading about how the financial regulation bill was defanged, and how BP is forbidding photos of dead dolphins covered in oil, and how BP's safety record is terrible by oil company standards, and this live underwater video of the oil spill.
So, instead:
- Patrick Stewart was knighted!
- 12 things that good bosses believe - I like "My success — and that of my people — depends largely on being the master of obvious and mundane things, not on magical, obscure, or breakthrough ideas or methods."
- From Wired: The Man Who Could Unsnarl Manhattan Traffic - he created a giant spreadsheet (.xls) of data indicating how much each extra car/bus/etc. costs the city in extra traffic slowdowns for others. Cool!
- Apple rejects an iPad app because they "are not allowing apps that create their own desktops", according to Steve Jobs.
- FlightPredictor gets some love from the official Palm blog. Yay!
- Citizens Against Retail Discrimination (or CARD) makes me laugh. It's clearly a front group for credit card companies: see
This amendment would shift this merchant cost of doing business to consumers. Giant retailers don’t want to pay their fair share, and they want consumers to foot the bill.and more specifically:
Consumers Will Pay for Merchant Windfall; Small Financial Institutions Will SufferOf course the other side of the coin is the even gianter credit card companies that want the right to charge high fees for debit cards. I'm not sure how I feel about the regulation, but if you're going to play the "small business" card, there are thousands (millions?) of small businesses, and I bet there are very very few small credit card companies.
The Senate recently added an amendment to S. 3217 that would arbitrarily limit the cost that merchants pay to accept debit cards, and eliminate important rules that are in place expressly to protect consumers.
Retailers are lobbying for a law that shifts their share of the cost for accepting debit cards onto consumers. Retailers want consumers to start paying their bills. They say it helps consumers, but really it's a ploy to increase profits. It’s unfair to have consumers pay for a retailer's business expense.
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